Squashing Envy

My garden feels especially tiny this week.
Maybe that’s because I saw one impressive spread out in the country over the weekend. Garden envy? Could be – but I’ve adopted my daughter, Clara’s, approach to such things. Instead of being envious, I’ve decided to be inspired.

First inspiration: rows upon rows of harvested butternut squash. They stand on their bulbous ends, all sizes lined up together on a shelf like soldiers fighting against industrial agriculture and fast food and chemical fertilizer and all the commercial madness these particular gardeners are working hard to avoid. They are an entire winter’s worth of wholesome, organic food, along with crates of sweet potatoes and a root cellar full of beets, carrots, onions, potatoes and parsnips.

Second inspiration: the rows of flourishing chard and mustard greens and kale still growing in what remains of the season. Abundant mounds of cabbages covered with plastic to protect from cold; cold frames full of spinach and bristling with different kinds of lettuces.

Back home on the edge of the city, just knowing that these gardeners will rise with the sun to tend the gardens and work within the rhythms of the season, takes the frantic edge off urban living.

I reassess my own veggie patch, think about where I might fit a cold frame, consider how to enrich the soil so my chard grows past its current stunted height. And, of course, I plan for a couple of healthy hills of butternut squash in next year's garden.